Tommy DeSimone Wasn’t Killed for Billy Batts — Goodfellas Got It Wrong

January 14th, 1979. Around 8:00 p.m., a house in Queens, New York, Tommy Dimone walks through the door expecting a ceremony. He’s been told he’s getting made. Inducted into the Lucesy crime family, the call he’s been waiting for his entire life. The room should be full of made men, wine, cigars, respect.

 Instead, it’s empty, just shadows. a chair and men he doesn’t recognize moving toward him. He understands instantly this isn’t a making ceremony. It’s an execution. The door closes behind him. Tommy D. Simone, 28 years old, prolific killer, violent psychopath, dies in that room. Multiple gunshots. His body was never found. And the reason he’s there isn’t just Billy Bats.

 Tommy Desimone wasn’t killed for one murder. He was killed for a pattern, a track record of unsanctioned violence that crossed family lines and violated the one rule you can’t break in organized crime. You don’t touch connected guys without permission. Billy Bats put Tommy on the list. But four years earlier, another killing kept him there.

 A killing Good Fellas never mentions. A killing that mattered almost as much. Ronald Gerroi Foxy, a Gambino associate connected to John Goty, killed by Tommy in December 1974. That murder wasn’t business. It was personal and it was unforgivable. This is the story of how Ronald Grothy’s death sealed Tommy Desimone’s fate. how a dispute over a woman or an insult or a threat, depending on who’s telling it, turned into a political problem the Gambinos never forgot.

 And how Tommy’s inability to control his violence made him too dangerous to let live. Because here’s what the history books don’t tell you. Tommy wasn’t executed just for killing a made man. He was executed for being a serial line crosser. a man who killed whoever offended him, regardless of rank or affiliation.

 Ronald Gerro was proof of that. And when the Gambinos finally got their revenge, they weren’t just avenging bats. They were settling multiple debts. Let’s start with who Ronald Gery actually was, the real person. Ronald Gerroy, sometimes spelled Gro, was born in the 1940s in New York. By the 1970s, he was a Gambino associate working with the Bergen Hunt and Fish Club crew. That’s John Goty’s crew.

 Goti wasn’t boss yet. He was a rising cappo. Ambitious, respected, violent when necessary. And Gerro was one of his guys. Gerro had the nickname Foxy, possibly for his looks, possibly for his street smarts. The sources don’t specify, but what matters is this. Gerrother wasn’t a nobody. He wasn’t expendable. He was connected.

 And in the mafia, connection is armor. You can’t kill a connected guy without consequences. Gerroi appears in the Sinatra Club, a memoir by Salvator Pissi, a Colombo family associate who ran an illegal gambling operation in the 70s. Pissi describes Jerathy as a Gambino associate who moved in legitimate circles, socialized with other wise guys, and carried himself with confidence.

 He wasn’t a made man, but he had protection by association, and that protection should have kept him safe. It didn’t. Now, let’s talk about Tommy Dimone. Thomas Anthony Dimone, born May 24th, 1950 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. grew up in New York. By his teens, he was already involved in crime. His brothers were connected. His family knew the life.

 And Tommy had a gift for violence. Not strategic violence. Not calculated violence. Impulsive, brutal, personal violence, the kind that gets you killed. Tommy was 6’2, but according to Henry Hill, he was built like a bull. athletic, strong, intimidating. The movie version, Tommy Devito, is small and wiry. The real Tommy was massive, and he had a reputation.

 By the time he was in his 20s, Tommy had killed multiple people, some for business, most for personal reasons, a bartender who insulted him, a maidman who disrespected him, anyone who crossed him. Tommy didn’t think about consequences. he reacted. And in the mafia, that’s a fatal flaw. Tommy worked with the Lucasi family. He was an associate of Paul Vario, a powerful capo who ran operations out of Brooklyn and Queens.

 Tommy ran with Jimmy Burke and Henry Hill. They pulled hijackings, loan sharking, gambling operations. Tommy was a good earner, but he was also unstable, and everyone knew it. By 1974, Tommy had already killed many people. In 1970, he killed Billy Bats, a Gambino made man, after a bar fight. Tommy beat Bats unconscious.

 Jimmy Burke helped finish him. They buried the body. The Gambinos suspected Tommy, but had no proof. Not yet. Here’s where the story gets murky. Multiple sources agree on the basics. Tommy D. Simone killed Ronald Gerroi, but the motive is disputed. The most persistent version repeated in street law and secondary sources goes like this.

 Tommy was dating Jerrothy’s sister. The relationship went bad. Tommy assaulted her, beat her up. When Gerroi found out, he threatened to kill Tommy. Word got back to Tommy. and Tommy being Tommy went to Jeru’s apartment and killed him first. That version has never been confirmed by court records or sworn testimony.

 There’s no wire tap, no deposition, no FBI file spelling it out. It’s street knowledge passed down through mob circles repeated by guys who knew guys. Salvator Pissi mentions Gerro in the Sinatra Club but doesn’t detail the killing. Henry Hill, the primary source for most Tommy Desimone stories, didn’t witness this one.

 So, we’re left with rumors, but those rumors have endured for decades. And in the mafia, rumors become truth when enough people believe them. Whether the dispute involved a sister, a personal insult, or something else entirely, the outcome isn’t disputed. On December 18th, 1974, Tommy De Simone went to Ronald Gerro’s apartment and shot him.

 Gerroi was killed. His body was found and the Gambinos knew who did it. This is where the politics matter. Billy Bats was a made man. Killing him was an automatic death sentence. But Jeruth wasn’t made. So why did his death matter? Because of who he was connected to. John Goty. Goti was a rising star in the Gambino family.

He was respected, feared, connected to powerful people and Gerroi was his guy. Killing Jerroi was an insult, a violation. A message that Tommy Desimone didn’t respect Gambino boundaries. The Gambinos didn’t act immediately. They couldn’t. Tommy was with the Lucesi family. You can’t just kill another family’s associate without approval.

There’s protocol, politics. You have to go through channels. But the Gambinos logged it. They remembered. And when they finally got the chance, they made sure Tommy paid. In the years between 1974 and 1979, Tommy kept killing. He was a liability to everyone. Charles Carglia, a Gambino hitman and associate of John Goty, later confirmed what insiders already knew.

Tommy wasn’t killed just for Billy Bats. Gerroi mattered, too. According to multiple mob sources, including testimony and interviews conducted years later, the Gambinos had a list. Tommy had violated them multiple times. Bats was the big one, the made man, the unforgivable act. But Gerroi was on that list, too.

 And when the Gambinos finally got permission to kill Tommy, they cited both. Here’s how it went down. By late 1978, the Gambinos had been waiting 9 years for revenge for Billy Bats. 9 years is a long time, but in the mafia, patience is power. You wait for the right moment, the right opportunity. And in December 1978, that moment came.

 Tommy had just participated in the Lufanza heist. The biggest cash robbery in American history. 5.8 million stolen. Tommy was one of the shooters. He wore a mask. He pistolhipped guards. He did his job. But in the aftermath, he killed Parnell Edwards for screwing up. That killing drew FBI attention. It made Tommy visible and visibility gave the Gambinos leverage.

 Paul Vario, Tommy’s boss in the Luces family, knew Tommy was a problem. He knew the Gambinos wanted him dead. And Vario, according to mob historians and cooperating witnesses, made a calculation. Tommy wasn’t worth protecting anymore. He’d crossed too many lines, killed too many people, created too many problems. So when the Gambinos asked for permission, Vario gave it, or at least he didn’t object.

On January 14th, 1979, Tommy got the call. He was being made. It was time. Tommy showed up at the house in Queens expecting a ceremony. He walked in, the door closed, and the men inside, likely including Gambino hitmen connected to John Goti, opened fire. Multiple shots. Tommy died instantly.

 His body was never recovered. Tommy Desimone was officially a missing person, but everyone in the mafia knew he was dead, and everyone knew why. So, what does Ronald Gerro’s death reveal? It reveals the accumulation principle. In organized crime, one violation might be forgiven, explained away, negotiated. But multiple violations create a pattern.

 And patterns can’t be ignored. Tommy killed Billy Bats. He killed Ronald Gerro. He killed Parnell Edwards. Each killing crossed a line. Each one created an enemy. And eventually the enemies outnumbered the Allies. Jerathy’s murder mattered because it showed Tommy didn’t respect boundaries. He didn’t care about family politics.

 He didn’t think about the consequences. If Tommy got mad, Tommy killed. And that made him too dangerous to tolerate. The Gambinos couldn’t let the Gerro killing go. Not because Gerro was indispensable, but because letting it go would signal weakness. It would tell every other crew that Gambino associates were fair game. that you could kill their guys without consequences. The Gambinos waited.

 They built their case. They got approval. And when they finally acted, they cited everything. Bats, jerothy, the pattern of unsanctioned violence. Tommy’s execution wasn’t revenge for one act. It was collection for multiple debts. John Goty’s involvement in Tommy’s killing is speculated, but not confirmed.

 Multiple sources place Goty at the scene or close to it. Goti was Jeruthy’s mentor. He had reason to want Tommy dead. And by 1979, Goty was powerful enough to make it happen. Whether Goti personally pulled the trigger or simply approved the hit, his fingerprints are on it. And that matters because Goty remembered and Goty collected.

 Henry Hill survived because he flipped. In 1980, Hill entered witness protection. He testified about Tommy, about the Lufanza heist, about the murders. He told the FBI that Tommy killed Gerrothi, that Tommy killed Bats, that Tommy was out of control. Hill’s testimony confirmed what law enforcement suspected, but by then Tommy was already dead.

 There was no one to prosecute, no body to find. Just a story, a cautionary tale about what happens when you can’t control your violence. Jimmy Burke, Tommy’s mentor and partner, survived longer. Burke was never charged with Tommy’s death. He went to prison for other crimes. The Lufanza aftermath murders, point shaving. He died in prison in 1996.

He never talked about Tommy, never admitted what he knew. But insiders believe Burke knew the hit was coming, that he either approved it or stayed silent because protecting Tommy wasn’t worth the cost. Paul Vario, Tommy’s Kappo, also went to prison. He was convicted of multiple charges in the 80s. He died in 1988.

 Like Burke, he never publicly discussed Tommy’s fate. But his silence was confirmation. If Vario had objected, the Gambinos couldn’t have acted. The fact that Tommy died means Vario let it happen. In organized crime, every action creates a debt. And debts don’t disappear just because you forget them. The other side remembers. They log it. They wait.

 And when the opportunity comes, they collect. Tommy De Simone thought he was untouchable. He thought his reputation, his violence, his willingness to kill would protect him. It didn’t. It made him a target. Gerro’s name doesn’t appear in Good Fellas because the movie focused on the story Martin Scorsesei and Nicholas Pilgi wanted to tell.

 The rise and fall of Henry Hill, the Lufanza heist, the betrayals, the spectacle. But the real story is deeper, messier, more political. Tommy wasn’t killed because of one barroom beating. He was killed because he was a serial violator. A man who couldn’t stop crossing lines. And Ronald Gerro was one of those lines.

Tommy Desimone wasn’t unlucky. He was overdue. The Gambinos had been waiting since 1970, waiting for permission, waiting for the right moment. And when it came, they acted. Not out of rage, not out of passion, but out of necessity. Tommy had become a problem that couldn’t be solved any other way. Ronald Foxy Gerroi isn’t famous.

 His name doesn’t appear in the movie, but his death mattered. It mattered to John Goty. It mattered to the Gambino family. And it mattered to Tommy’s fate. If this deep dive into the killing that Hollywood ignored opened your eyes to how mob justice actually works, hit that subscribe button.

 We drop untold mafia stories every single week. Stories that go beyond the movies and into the cold, calculated reality. Drop a comment below. What other untold mob story should we investigate? What name from the underworld deserves its own documentary? Let us know. Because at Mafia Talks, we don’t just retell the legends.